


The Changeling

by limeta



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Changelings, Fae & Fairies, Folklore, Gen, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:09:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23875231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/limeta/pseuds/limeta
Summary: Tom Marvolo Riddle is a changeling.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	The Changeling

Tom Marvolo Riddle was a changeling. He lived and breathed iron in muggle London and constantly had coughing fits that begged for isolation and prodding doctors. Mrs. Cole locked him up so his oddness didn’t spread to the rest of the children. It was good to voice that similarities existed between magical children and changelings, so many that Hogwarts accepted those different from their own. If veela can enter so can fae.

The changeling proudly talked to snakes, whispered to them songs, but so did he speak to trees and insects and flies. Salt he was afraid of. It burned him terribly. When Mrs. Cole took him and the rest of the orphans to the beach near caves perfect for revenge, Riddle mewled and cried and ran as far away from the seashore as his legs could carry him. His heart beat in a rhythm unimaginably fast. Mice envied such heart-speed.

When Billy splashed his skin with the salt water, blisters riddled his impeccable face. Billy drowned that night in the cave. No wandless cruciatus, but magic older and inhuman at the fingertips of inexperienced folk.

* * *

Firestorm should have been Lord Voldemort, but instead mingled with immortals and learned their ways of magic. Unrestrained force that put limitations on others. The Unseelie Queen favoured him for he was eager to please, to learn, and to serve. She taught him magic and he sang for her and danced with her and stood by her, a sight to behold. None would mistake him for a human from the iron-side.

‘’Can you die?’’

‘’I can, Firestorm, of course I can!’’ The Unseelie Queen had giggled and bounced him on her knee on the throne. She fed him cakes that aged him as quickly as his changeling self so as not to bore her with infant tears. ‘’Only Death can kill me if it is commanded.’’

‘’Can I die?’’

The Unseelie Queen threw the small child down from her stone throne and watched him tumble down and scream and bite down pain. ‘’As easily as that, little storm! As easily as that!’’

Fey around him snickered, enjoying his suffering and the new entertainment he posed to the court. When he pulled himself to his feet he coughed some blood out and they all recoiled at the smell of iron in it.

‘’Best make him strong, your majesty.’’ A knight regaled in golden armour said to the Unseelie Queen, emerging as a vicar of sanity from the crowd. ‘’Think of how useful he could be.’’

The Unseelie Queen pondered and gazed through the boy and said. ‘’Make him one of us, then.’’

‘’It shall be as you command.’’ The knight promised and grabbed the child up by his arm harshly yanking him into a standing position.

So the knight trained the young fey-raised child like one taught a bloodthirsty soldier to fight until he was fit enough not to clutch the Unseelie Queen’s skirt like a forgotten, sniveling child.

He stood by her side and sang and danced like all mortal children did to amuse fey.

''Firestorm, you are free to roam!'' The Unseelie Queen giggled and sent her favourite pet to the ironside world. ''See how the lovely Tom Riddle fares. Don't be caught unawares! He is fey, still.''

Firestorm grinned with malicious teeth, symmetrical and perfect. His clothes were made of leaves and bark and he looked as if he'd walked out of a production of Midsummer Night's Dream. He bowed to his queen and vowed to return when she needed him most.

He saw a wizard in purple garb (good grief it looked as if it had been mangled by the seamstress, hadn’t they heard of magic silk?) speak to Tom Riddle about school. Ah, the one that saw and didn’t mind to be observed. Yes, Firestorm knew of this purple wizard. The pixies that lived in his ancient tomes spoke of him giddily. Pranks they pulled, but he minded not.

Instead of Tom Riddle's wardrobe catching fire, the room slowly filled with water. Firestorm's lips quirked in a grin. The changeling hissed and pleaded and promised not to steal and to behave.

* * *

As Tom Riddle absconded to Hogwarts Firestorm returned to Faerie.

There the Unseelie Queen asked him to dance and their bodies twisted together for days. Firestorm stumbled after the ancient fey, his movements sloppy and disoriented compared to her determined and assured. His soles bloodied with wounds and yet the queen made no indication of stopping her torture. She twirled him like a marionette and demanded he sing for her pleasure.

And the fey-raised wizard sang, higher when the pain got too strong and lower when his strength fled. He lowered his head to the queen’s hip and begged her for reprieve. She laughed a chilling laugh - one that he thought belonged to death that waited deep in the sea.

‘’Tired already, Firestorm?’’ Her claw dropped his hand and flew to his feverish forehead. ‘’My, you’re so warm!’’ She dropped him and went to find a new partner to dance with. 

The knight that trained him glided to his side from shadows and pulled him to wobbly feet. Firestorm leaned into his cool touch and whimpered. ‘’Easy there boy, make yourself better to continue serving as the queen’s beloved toy.’’ His twig-fingers combed through Firestorm’s long hair and soothed his pain. 

‘’Will I die here? Will she kill me?’’ Through delirium the fey-raised wizard mused, sweaty and weak and worth nothing. 

‘’If the Queen so wishes you will. You are but her fleeting thrill.’’

Firestorm did not want to die, not in Faerie and especially not because of the Unseelie Queen. He closed his eyes and breathed laboured breaths. Each breath sent a shiver down his spine and prickled his hairs upright in cold. Red fire trickled from his skin and warmed him whole. The knight took distancing steps away from his charge and whispered. ‘’Enjoy your mortality, it brings you many privileges we merry fey are barred from.’’ 

‘’Like?’’ 

The knight’s smile was full of tree parasites and leaves. ‘’Only mortal humans can control Death. Many such inferiors wish for the hallows so they can master the one who controls each dying breath.’’ 

The fey-raised wizard focused on the knight’s words carefully. 

‘’Hallows are stories told to children, most now do not believe in them.’’ A crooked, wicked grin shaped the knight’s visage, ‘’Then again, they do like to speak of us in this way.’’ 

If the fey-raised wizard began to take an active interest in the hallows, none of the fey voiced it. Least of all the Unseelie Queen so blinded by her power and might.

* * *

Summers passed. 

Firestorm ascended from pet to knight. He wore the emblem of the Unseelie Court and killed all of those who spoke against his queen. Even the knight that had trained him dutifully. The Unseelie Queen had grown tired of his bouts of sanity and counsel, deciding to have the agreeable apprentice slay the meandering master.

From time to time, when Firestorm was exhausted he wondered what his ironside-self was doing. He glimpsed into a world of war and carnage and iron and wondered why he would ever wish to return.

Tom Riddle, poor ignorant lad that he was, thought that he was a human mortal. It scared him, this fear. Firestorm watched him tumble from tome to tome in the forbidden section of the library. He searched for immortality like dying men, not like a child he was. 

Hogwarts hissed and Firestorm left before the castle got too uppity with him. Such ancient magic could not be upheld by human morale alone, there was something fey that kept the castle standing, definitely. Firestorm could feel it just as he could feel the call of his queen. His leash tightened and not for the first time, Firestorm growled in envy after ignorant Tom Riddle.

It was a joyous occasion, the death of Myrtle Warren. This lapse in judgement Firestorm cherished and clung to his whole soul that fuelled his sanity and magic. A fey could not split a soul. A fey was much like a tree with twisting branches and stable roots. This practise of ignorance – and what beautiful ignorance it was – sang Firestorm as he watched Tom Riddle claw at his heart – represented a literal split of physical form for the fey. Herpo the Foul never intended the fair folk to use his spells.

''Are you well, are you well? Should I throw you in a well?'' Firestorm crooned and appeared before Tom Riddle. Bleary, pained silver gazed into giddy, beautiful copper.

''Are you the devil Mrs Cole speaks of?''

Firestorms cocked his head to the side and advanced towards the dying fey. He unsheathed a golden sword he used to cut many an enemy down and stabbed the diary Tom Riddle hugged.

''I am the knight of the Unseelie Queen. Her humble servant.'' The last bit, Tom Riddle noticed through pain and fear and death, the fey-raised knight said through gritted teeth.

From within the diary flew a phantom of magical energy that Firestorm gently caught with his hands and held to the deathly pale fey to see. It wriggled and squirmed and begged to be let go, but Firestorm wouldn’t have it. He told Tom Riddle to open his mouth and when the changeling obeyed, shoved the energy into his mouth to eat.

Reddish flare coloured the fey's cheeks. Firestorm patted his head like the Unseelie Queen had patted him and wished him well.

''Wait,'' the changeling surged towards the spectre clad in golden armour and sword, ''what will you ask in return?''

''Nothing comes to mind, yet. Do not worry, you will be informed.''

With such terrifying words, Firestorm left Tom Riddle in a pool of Myrtle Warren's blood, mixing with sink water which gurgled as the Basilisk did in the background. Basilisks obeyed the fey in fear, not in kin like they did parselmouths.

* * *

Tom Marvolo Riddle became I am Lord Voldemort. Death Eaters surrounded him. Dumbledore opposed him. He lost his mind slowly but surely, because no fey was meant to live in the ironside for so long. His pale fingers gripped the yew wand until it broke in his hand. Wands he did not require. He had long since understood what he was.

When he had read of changelings and remembered the spectre that looked so much like him in his youth, Tom Riddle had taken an iron spoon and held it to his flesh until it burned a mark into his inner arm. That was when he knew what he was. That was the day he knew not to tell anyone what he was.

Unwanted. Discarded. It was Tom Riddle's fate to be thrown away by those that ought to keep him. His fey parents, Tom Riddle's human parents, and many more that only wished his company for the benefit of his reputation.

A dangerous swirl of magic circled Tom Riddle as he fought aurors and those completely unprepared to face a scorned fey.

Dumbledore barely escaped with his life. And that was when he saw it, through thunder and lightning and magic and wrath: Tom Riddle's pointed ears, like knives aimed to the sky; his silver eyes with slit, cat-like pupils that shone in the darkness in a Slytherin green glow; and teeth as sharp as shark pincers that protruded and ruined the perfect head-boy smile.

Firestorm watched the sight from a nearby oak tree that due to his potent magic could not be wrought down by Riddle's uncharacteristic hole in sanity. He clapped a merry tune and whistled gently to the wind that whistled back in code.

''How do you do, fare one?''

After the majestic hurricane that had decimated a good portion of magical London, Tom Riddle gazed at Firestorm and asked him. ''You're what I've replaced, aren't you?''

''Don't ask questions you know the answers to. It merely wastes time of those better than you.'' Firestorm rubbed his hands together and from them sparked fire. Tom Riddle knew it was brighter than fiendfyre, though harder to control. It was fey magic. Riddle ground his teeth and bit back a snarl. Magic  _ he _ should have learned.

''You're very ugly.'' Riddle hissed when the other taunted him. ''I can see why they have taken me to raise as their own. My beauty charms even the Queen! It suits  _ you _ to be thrown.''

Firestorm grinned at him and it was a human smile with teeth symmetrical and perfect. The kind human women fell over; the kind human women have complimented Tom Riddle for. Back when he still looked like the fey-raised boy.

''You don't age.''

''I do, it's just rather slow in Faerie.''

''You're still fifteen.''

''I'd have you know I am fifty-four years old!''

Wizards feared the fair folk. Muggles did not believe and it helped them live because those who didn’t seek out the fair folk rarely found themselves in their path. Magic was power and a shimmering light for a crow to tear apart and take to her nest.

''How will I return to them now when their only basis for following me was that I was exactly like them? Angry at the iron muggles and their technology and their prowess and their hubris.'' Tom Riddle wondered and absentmindedly touched his pointed ears. A shudder overwhelmed him. He closed his silver eyes shut and inhaled sharply through his nose only to forget to exhale. And it did him no harm.

''Say you borrowed magic from a fey.'' Firestorm offered.

''That's impossible.''

''Oh, it is impossible, but humans believe anything you tell them.''

* * *

So, Lord Voldemort had borrowed magic from a fey. His death eaters lauded him. Bellatrix Black was the only one to truly believe him, whilst others knew better. She was too blinded by her reverence and faith to understand he was tricking her into doing his dirty work.

Firestorm amiably observed the scene unfold. Bellatrix Black came to the Longbottom residence and tortured until their minds bled and only a husk remained. The babe she killed first.

''Bellatrix Black, kill the child first.'' Her lord had commanded and the enamored witch had found her mind set on the sole singularity. Fey had complete power over you if they knew your name.

And, as Firestorm liked reminding his changeling-self, ''You know the purple wizard's full name, don't you?''

Such sadness overcame the fey-raised knight when the day came for the changeling to kill the wizard holed up in Hogwarts. Because his queen beckoned for his return and so the knight bid his shadow well on his quest.

* * *

Faerie ignited in colours humans could not comprehend. Those who grew up in it could glimpse at the intense beauty sporadically. It always changed, however, and that was the most precious part. The surprise that came with each visit to his homeland.

He bowed to the impatient Queen. Her claw tapped on the stone throne and refused to meet his gaze. Firestorm bit his tongue and swallowed blood and stood as still as a corpse.

‘’Do you serve me, knight of mine?’’

‘’I am yours.’’ Firestorm said and swallowed more blood that tasted like the iron they all feared. If they tasted it they would not come closer. It was the one thing that he could use to defend himself. The golden sword to his hip could not cut the queen. Sparks littered his form, but no fire caught.

‘’Why do you frolic with your colic shadow?’’

‘’Your Highness has told me to roam freely.’’

‘’And return whenever I needed you most.’’

‘’Have I not done as stated?’’ Firestorm sweated in his armour, the breastplate with the unseelie emblem scorched his skin like a hot poker to cattle.

She regarded him carefully. Lifted her hand to either sentence him to death or set him free. A fist would be his doom; a relaxed hand going down would mean freedom. The Queen held the open hand in the air longer than necessity allowed.

‘’You serve yourself, knight.’’

‘’I am yours.’’

‘’For now you remain.’’

Her hand fell.

He rose and bowed.

Yourself…how narcissistic of him to want to help what he should have been.

‘’Run, Firestorm. Run and hope mine do not catch you.’’

Firestorm sprinted just as the bloodthirsty fey of the unseelie court surged for him. The Unseelie Queen grinned and clapped along to the spectacle. Her laughter echoed like insanity in Firestorm’s human ears as hounds and spears pierced him on the hunt.

* * *

The purple wizard died.

The dark haired baby with a mother made of iron lived.

* * *

Firestorm, his body littered with scars that would heal, but not fade, listened to his other-self’s rant.

‘’There is a prophecy with me and the Potter child! I was sure it would be the Longbottom brat, but alas I was wrong!’’

Firestorm did not believe in prophecies unless the Unseelie Queen gave them out. Only fey could foresee the future for that was Fate’s gift to them. Humans pretended. They were good at mimicking, much alike a stranded changeling.

‘’I came to that home and went past her wards of iron. I am Lord Voldemort! I cannot be vanquished to easily!’’ It was strange to see the fey so sure of his power when he could not even kill a babe. Firestorm kept his mouth shut and listened to the pale creature. It was more a vampire now than a gentleman.

‘’What happened?’’

‘’I was about to kill the child when his impertinent mother came to my side and threw salt water at me!’’

‘’People now know you are fey.’’

Embarrassment and humiliation and grief coloured the creature’s features as he forced out through a blister-infested throat. ‘ _ ’Yes _ .’’

‘’Many of your soldiers have been imprisoned.’’

‘’I call to them with the mark and their name and they refuse to hear me!’’

‘’They refuse nothing. Dementors are powerful fey that keep them at bay.’’

‘’I could persuade them to listen to me!’’

‘’No, you could not. They listen to those the Unseelie Queen favours.’’

‘’Then you!’’

‘’I could.’’ And Firestorm would, had he the Unseelie Queen’s lingering favour in his pocket still.

‘’Excellent!’’ the mad fey grinned and clasped hands together in prayer.

‘’I will not be made a servant of yours.’’ The knight rebuked with a sneer. ‘’Not to a pathetic creature that owes me its life.’’

As if slapped, Lord Voldemort flinched into himself. He remembered Myrtle Warren’s blood soaking his school robe, his fleeting mortality, and the rusted knight saving him.

‘’What do you  _ want _ from me?’’ Lord Voldemort shouted in fear and in pain and in indecisiveness that ate him alive.

‘’I have not yet decided.’’ The fey-raised knight said. ‘’You will be informed when the time comes.’’

* * *

Summers passed.

Years of ruthlessness made Firestorm favoured once more.

Years of hiding made Lord Voldemort a ghost to whisper around a fire in common rooms.

Lily Potter. What a pretty name for one so bold and ugly on the inside, to hurt a fey so foully and cruelly with salt water from the seaside.

Firestorm watched her and plotted. She was the threat; with her eliminated, the wicked, pixie-like child could be thrown off a cliff or shot with iron or drowned in salt water. Firestorm would do it when the time came.

The fey-raised knight used to violence came from behind Lily Potter and pushed her under a lorry carrying salt from the sea. She and her son had moved to the place, a city full of iron and noise and non-believers, which Lord Voldemort would dare not tread. London brought painful memories to the changeling, but not to Firestorm.

* * *

The Unseelie Queen called him.

‘’Do you serve me?’’

Repetition. Contrition.

Treason. Reason.

‘’I serve you first. Then myself.’’ Myself, he could see her wonder, or my other self?

She let him go. But he knew there would be no third mercy.

* * *

Lord Voldemort waited and flailed and wandered about. Firestorm brought the nerve-wracked fey sweets to calm him. They helped. Fey liked sweet things, Firestorm knew.

‘’I like your new place.’’ It was a shack in Albania. Many trees. Prokletije next to them bordering with Montenegro. Many nice trees to live in there, too. ‘’Let me see your face.’’

Lord Voldemort lifted it and it looked similar to how the fey-raised knight thought he would look like at seventy.

‘’There is no need to hide your heritage.’’

‘’You do not age.’’ Voldemort whispered and grasped the knight’s tunic.

‘’I do.’’

‘’You look barely twenty-two.’’

Firestorm inhaled and exhaled whereas Voldemort had no need to breathe anymore. Fey usually only breathed when they thought they needed to play human.

‘’I killed Lily Potter for you.’’

‘’Do I owe you more, now?’’ Scorn and disdain wretched from the creature’s voice as it accused the human who was more fey than the actual thing.

‘’I’ll think about it. You will be informed of my decision.’’

‘’WHEN WILL THIS BE!?’’ Magic swirled and a hurricane began to form. Thunderstorms blared outside and Firestorm hushed it with a sentence.

‘’When you’ve slain Harry James Potter.’’ Firestorm answered and Voldemort relaxed, grateful for knowing. ‘’You know his name. Use it and kill him.’’

‘’The prophecy commands me to win in fair duel.’’

‘’You are fair folk. Any battle you enter is fair duel.’’ Firestorm place a comforting hand on the fey’s shoulder and whispered. ‘’You will win and I will be rid of you.’’

‘’What do you get out of this?’’ Lord Voldemort asked, desperate for answers. Desperate and in agony since the first time they met.

‘’I live vicariously through you.’’ Firestorm shrugged and the lie came easily for he wove truths in it like a seamstress. ‘’I was supposed to play your life. It is amusing to see you win.’’

* * *

The following May day, Lord Voldemort challenged Harry Potter do a duel in Hogwarts.

Only four remained in Hogwarts. Everyone else waited outside for news.

Firestorm and Voldemort stood across from Minerva McGonagall and Harry Potter.

‘’Minnie, Minnie, Minnie.’’ Firestorm giggled and circled the worn, sturdy witch that tossed his words out of her mind like only Celtics knew how.

‘’Harry James Potter, die!’’ Lord Voldemort took the elder wand and just before he could shoot heard Firestorm say: ‘’I am Lord Voldemort – you will let Harry Potter kill you.’’

Minerva McGonagall inhaled sharply. Lord Voldemort remained frozen in his casting stance. His glamour fell to reveal his fey characteristics.

Harry James Potter took his wand and shot a green curse, no qualms with killing the monster that was responsible for his parents’ murder.

That day he earned the elder wand which completed his deathly hallow set and made him master of death. Only a human could be death’s master and what a human it was!

Firestorm bowed to Harry James Potter, introduced himself, and told him that without his interference he would lie dead.

McGonagall stood off by the side and watched Firestorm warily. Harry shook hands with him and asked him. ‘’Why did you help me?’

Firestorm wished to sing:

Harry Potter I like power,

Yes, I do.

I hear the hallows call to you

I would be a fool not to help you.

Instead he said: 

‘’Because I am human. A wizard like you, Harry.’’ Firestorm breathed slowly as he continued with his speech. ‘’It was the right thing to do. I wished, longed, yearned for a life away from the fey. Away from the terrible Unseelie Queen.’’

One did not insult fey royalty and lived.

Firestorm clung onto Harry Potter as the Unseelie Queen tore a portal from her realm to his and asked him in that sweet voice that succoured him and soothed him and trained him and hurt him ‘’Will you dare say you serve me, knight?’’

The fey-raised wizard grinned and tipped his head in Harry Potter’s direction. ‘’I serve the one who wields Death.’’

Only Death can kill fey royalty. It was known. It was known.

Harry Potter looked from Firestorm (a boy like him that made the right decision when it counted) and the Unseelie Queen and chose to protect the wizard. He aimed the elder wand at the queen and watched as horror shone in her abyss eyes.

‘’You will not be rid of me this easily, knight of mine.’’ The Unseelie Queen vowed and Firestorm shook like a burning leaf in a storm of fire. He clutched and sunk his nails into Harry Potter as the queen left.

‘’Thank you.’’ He murmured and tried his best to sound exactly like a house elf. ‘’Thank you so much, Harry. You have saved me from a fate worse than death. You have saved me. You have helped me. You are a true hero!’’

McGonagall narrowed her eyes behind her spectacles. She crossed her arms and coughed to get their attention. ‘’Mr. Potter, you will be wise not to trust everything this peculiar wizard tells you.’’

Harry Potter, fate bless his soul, was such a trusting fool.

With a flick of his finger McGonagall’s hair caught fire and engulfed her whole. Harry turned to him and demanded revenge but found his heart taken clean out of his ribcage, still beating in Firestorm’s hand. A death only those taught by fae could dish out.

‘’Thank you, Harry James Potter. You have served your purpose most valiantly.’’ Firestorm gave a maddening smile of triumph, tossed the heart under his heel, and collected the hallows to crown himself Death’s master.

‘’What was that you said, dear Queen of mine? It was quite true. I do serve myself.’’

Firestorm used the elder wand to incinerate the bodies. Before Harry Potter completely burned, the fey-raised wizard took on his form and exited Hogwarts to be hailed as a hero.

‘’I did it!’’ Harry Potter shouted in the most Harry Potter voice the fey-raised wizard could muster. ‘’I killed Voldemort!’’

He raised the elder wand and shouted. ‘’I WON!’’


End file.
